Skindeep
by Mirime Kisarrastine
Summary: Jellal dreams and recalls part of his past life. Literally. "I was the only woman to get past your defenses." Or how similar Jellal and Sieg Hart truly are. Tiny bit of Jellal/Erza.


Kind of a crossover with Rave Master. C'mon, the comparison offered itself. Hints at my favourite, definitely-not-canon pairing in Rave Master (Sieg Hart x Reina) and my favourite practically-canon pairing in Fairy Tail (Jellal x Erza). Inspired by Nika-nee's fic Marking Post from her Good Ship Titania series.

**Disclaimer:** Hiro Mashima owns both of the series I am misusing in this little ficlet.

* * *

The dream is different this time.

"Long time no see, Sieg."

He wants to correct her, to tell her that Sieglein is merely an alias he took to infiltrate the Magic Council, that his name is Jellal, Jellal Fernandes and he knows it because he was told all of it by others; because his own memory is a blank page with only a splash of red and warmth that is Erza.

The woman in front of him is not Erza (red; warmth; scarlet hair; tears; pain; desire to stay). The woman is unknown and yet...

_A teasing smile curved her lips. Green hair fluttered in a breeze. Breathy voice spoke of forgiveness (pain; pain; pain; blood dripping from his back; the feel of cold steel lodged in his body; betrayal, on both of their parts)._

"Who are you?" Jellal asks this figment of his imagination, though why he would create someone like her when there is Erza to think about is beyond him.

"And here I thought I made a lasting impression on you," she pouts and those dark-red lips should clash with her green hair but they don't. "I'm very disappointed in you, Sieg Hart."

"I'm not Sieg Hart," he responds because this is something he is sure of (he ignores the familiarity the name brings along). "My name is Jellal."

She nods and finally steps forward. They stand on top of a large building, one that is square and unlike anything he has ever seen in Fiore.

"Of course it is. In this life. In another..." she trails off before beaming him a smile. "I'm Reina," she introduces herself holding out her right hand for shaking. Jellal regards it with suspicion, not in the least caused by the snake armlet that looks ready to come alive at any moment.

"You are a dream. A hallucination," he says firmly. She laughs.

"I have been in dreams of many men, Sie-Jellal," she corrects herself. "Though I never managed to find out if yours were included. Then again, better late than never."

"What do you want from me," and he adds as an afterthought, "Reina?"

"I want nothing," she shakes her head. "It's you who conjured me up here. By rights, you shouldn't remember me. You aren't supposed to remember the other lives."

"I don't remember any of my lives," he confesses before he can stop himself. She stands right next to him by now and he has no idea how she has managed that.

"And that might be the problem," she speaks. "You are recalling part of your life but it's a wrong one. The elemental master Sieg Hart is what you once were. Once upon a different life... once upon a different world..."

Jellal looks forward, over the wasteland of what he instinctively knows is his soul and memory. It's empty, so empty... He could get lost in it so easily, forget even those things he has been told, give in to oblivion...

A hand grasps his elbow, pulling him back from the edge.

"Are you giving up?" Reina hisses in his ear. "That's not like the man I remember."

A quick anger takes hold of him. She remembers when he doesn't. She knows him, even though it is another him. He wrenches his arm out of her grasp.

"What kind of man do you remember?" he lashes out at her. "Because from what I have been told, I have been nothing but despicable scum in this life. Traitor, liar, cheater. So blinded by my own goals I hurt everyone around me."

Her smile is strangely wistful.

"I called you a traitor once," she comments. "And you were certainly single-mindedly devoted to a single goal. And you hurt a lot of people in the name of that goal. Funny how you seem to go down the same path again."

Jellal turns away from her. So, that's it. He has been destined to repeat his past mistakes but it doesn't ease his conscience at all. It makes it worse in a sense. Is he always going to be like that, no matter how many lives he goes through?

"What was your relationship with me?" he thinks to asks. Because she must have been important to him if he called out her image unconsciously.

"You ask hard questions, Sieg."

He lets it pass this time. She's staring past him, recalling another time and Jellal represses a jealous twinge he's not able to do the same.

"I was the only woman to get past your defenses," Reina says decisively at last. "Literally."

A memory, slippery as a trout in a stream passes through his mind. Pain, steel, blood, betrayal.

"You tried to kill me," he understands.

"Exactly," she beams a smile at him. "But no hard feelings over that, you understood it at the time."

"Did I?" Jellal wonders aloud.

"You betrayed our organization in the name of your goal. You have planned from the very beginning to take down our leader, as well. I was among his elite. It was my duty to take you down or at least try to."

"You didn't suceed, though."

"Circumstances beyond my control," she shrugs. "But other than that incident - and several others - we got along reasonably well, I think. Though you never responded to my flirting," she sighs. "Such a shame."

He stares at this woman - Reina - and thinks about the irony. She is beautiful (like Erza), she is strong (like Erza), she tried to kill him for betraying her (like Erza). Did she...

"You loved me?" he asks, rather stupidly he realizes, because she bursts out laughing.

"Oh no," she gasps out. She waves a hand to calm him down. "No offense meant, but I'm not the type to fall in unrequited love. Let's say there was a potential for me to love you if you behaved differently. You didn't, so no love on my part."

He's comforted by that. The history's not the same, the path he has taken is slightly different.

"How did I die?"

She calms down instantly, her green eyes regarding him seriously.

"You sacrificed your life for the sake of your comrades. I don't know more, since I had died by then, as well."

He turns to stare over the plane of his mind. It's still blank but for the first time he doesn't feel despair when gazing at it. There is no pull at him to get lost in the vast space and not come back. It's more like a gentle invitation to fill it up again.

There is a warmth at his side but when he glances down, expecting to see the green hair of Reina, he is instead met with a sight of red. Red, warmth...

"Erza."

It's barely a whisper but she hears him because she turns her head.

"Are you now at peace?" she asks.

"Was that the purpose of this dream?"

"You tell me. Your mind created all of this."

Jellal thinks about this until he has an answer. Erza waits patiently for him to come to it even though she already knows it. It's only natural. His mind created her image just as it created Reina. It means that part of him already knows all of the answers, it's just a matter of time to drag them all out for his consciousness to peruse and accept.

"I think," he starts, "I think that this dream was just that - a dream. But it was also to remind me of the importance of the choices. As this Sieg Hart, I had a goal," another memory flits along (guardian of time; the time stream must be protected at all costs; would you sacrifice the whole world for the sake of one girl?), "and everything in my life was secondary to that goal. Similar to how I was when building the Tower. But somewhere along the line, I changed to the extent of being able to die for someone else's sake," (a grave with a name; writing and sending letters to the future; did they get back safely?). "I made a choice as Sieg Hart and I made it again as Jellal - to stand by my comrades no matter what the cost to myself. I made the right choice in the end and I must never forget that. The price - my life or my memories - it doesn't matter."

Erza smiles appraisingly and touches his arm.

"There's one other thing, Jellal, that you must never forget."

"And that is?"

"You aren't alone. Not in this life or in the others."

She fades and so does the wasteland of his mind but as Jellal wakes up from his dream, he feels at peace for the first time since being imprisoned.

* * *

**A/N:** Different one, I know. I just wanted to play around a bit with Jellal and Sieg's likeness and I liked the idea of Jellal being Sieg Hart in another life (I ship Sieg/Reina like crazy, btw). Well, I hope you liked.


End file.
